Review: Julian Wachner Celebrates Ginastera’s Centennial

The conductor Julian Wachner’s feeling for the music of the Argentine composer Alberto Ginastera began before he was born, he told the audience at Trinity Wall Street church on Friday night. When his mother was eight months pregnant with him, Mr. Wachner explained, she started learning Ginastera’s pulsing First Piano Sonata, and played it constantly.

Mr. Wachner most recently put his passion for Ginastera into practice this spring to celebrate that composer’s centennial. Friday’s program was the finale to “Revolutionaries,” a two-and-a-half-month celebration that linked Ginastera, who boldly combined South American musical idioms with atonal 20th-century techniques, to late Beethoven, suggesting that in their own ways both were revolutionary.

For this concluding program, a free concert streamed live on Trinity’s website, Mr. Wachner conducted Ginastera’s seldom-heard “Psalm 150” for chorus and orchestra, followed by Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The roster of performers exemplified Trinity’s tradition of bringing together diverse ensembles. The impressive Choir of Trinity Wall Street was joined by Trinity Youth Chorus, Downtown Voices (a new choir comprised volunteers and professional Trinity choristers), Novus NY (Trinity’s contemporary music orchestra) and 1B1 (a Norwegian string ensemble).

The centennial of Ginastera, who died in 1983, has been mostly overlooked by New York institutions. In a notable exception, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center presented the Miró Quartet in exciting accounts of Ginastera’s three string quartets on a single program last month.

Though the “Revolutionaries” festival mostly presented late Ginastera works, “Psalm 150” was written in 1938 by the 22-year-old composer as a silver wedding anniversary present for his parents. This teeming 16-minute piece for large chorus and orchestra must have been the couple’s ultimate gift.

The music conveys the exuberant cacophony of an Argentine wedding. As it opens, a subdued, ominous bass motif stirs and slowly crests, breaking into fractured brassy fanfares and choral proclamations. During whole stretches, celebratory choral bursts seem to escape tugging strands of nervous, dark orchestra music. Reflective passages lead to celestial phrases for the children’s choir. The piece ends with blissful “Alleluia” refrains as crystalline chords cascade in the piano and percussion.

The reverberant acoustics of the church must make it a little hard for orchestra players to hear one another. During the Beethoven Ninth, the playing lacked precision and clarity now and then. No matter. This was a stirring, intensely dramatic performance. Four excellent vocal soloists — the soprano Sarah Brailey, the mezzo-soprano Melissa Attebury, the tenor Vale Rideout and the bass-baritone Dashon Burton — sat in the first pew of the church until their moment came in the last movement, when they rose to face the audience, seated right before them, and sang splendidly. I have seldom been so swept away by the “Ode to Joy” choral finale. At the end, the ovation was tremendous.

A webstream of this program is at trinitywallstreet.org.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C6 of the New York edition with the headline: Celebrating Ginastera’s Centennial. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe